She was a con-man’s daughter

An essay by Billie Livingston, a daughter of a con man. She’s written a novel, One Good Hustle, about the daughter of con artists:

Like most con-artists, my Dad and Jack preferred to target the elderly. In one scam, dressed in dark tailor-made suits, they would knock on a woman’s door, and hand her business cards that identified them as bank officers investigating an embezzler. The problem was internal, and they believed it was a teller. Sitting in the woman’s living room, my father would gaze into her eyes with concern and gently explain what an extraordinary public service she would be doing if she agreed to withdraw her savings for the sake of this on-going investigation. Once they had her money, Dad and Jack explained, they would enter the bank undercover, target the teller under suspicion, re-deposit the funds and if any of the cash went missing, the culprit would be caught. Twenty-five thousand dollars, a small fortune in the 1970s, was promised as a reward.